About 1,000 teens and young adults lined up outside the senior center Saturday, where two dozen recruiters were waiting for prospective employees to fill summer jobs.

The job fair was meant to give teens a head start in this tough economy – companies such as Jamba Juice, Old Navy, TJ Maxx, Cold Stone Creamery and others with part-time and entry-level jobs were looking to fill their ranks.

Gary Stacey, a customer service manager at TJ Maxx in Tustin, was among the recruiters. He said that though a lot of the retail sales positions at the store have traditionally been filled by teens and young adults, he’s been seeing older applicants laid off from other industries.

“At the store, we get people from all walks of life that have come from other industries or companies that have downsized, whether they’re looking for a career change or something to hold them over,” Stacey said.

Still, he was at the fair Saturday to look for outgoing, friendly salespeople from among the ranks of high school and college students. And other employers said even with the tough economy, they get almost exclusively teen applicants.
Nicole McCaskell, an assistant general manager for the Tustin and Irvine franchises of Jamba Juice, said that only about 1 in 50 applicants was older than teen- or young-adult-aged.

Kyron Lazarus, 17, of Woodbridge High School in Irvine, was looking for an office job, or, like most of the teens, whatever he could find.

“I was looking at something like a business office job, but I also saw on the job list that you could work at UPS, so I was looking into something like that,” he said.

Monica Baker, 18, a senior at Santa Marguerite Catholic High School in Rancho Santa Margarita, said she hoped the job fair would give her an advantage over merely sending out applications.

“I looked a lot online, but it’s hard to find places because a lot of places aren’t hiring,” she said.

Several dozen of the early-arrivers to the city-sponsored job fair attended a boot camp to prepare for the interviews and application process. Jennifer Hale, who works in human resources for the Irvine Community Services Department, gave the teens advice on how to fill out applications, how to dress and how to present themselves in interviews.

Karen Springer of the Youth Employment Service said that this year’s job fair is the city’s 16th annual. In years past, she said about 25 percent of the attendees were hired by the employers, but since the economic crisis hit, it’s only helped place about half as many.

“But when people leave here and they don’t get hired, we continue working with them,” Springer said.

Irvine Youth Employment Service organized the event. The department’s website keeps updated on events and weekly workshops organized by the service, and residents 16-25 can schedule appointments to work on building a resume that will entice employers.

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